


A Nervous Tic Motion

by ravenlowe



Series: By All Accounts [2]
Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Amnesia, Grief/Mourning, Loss of Limbs, M/M, References to Depression, The Golden Circle Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-28
Updated: 2017-04-28
Packaged: 2018-10-24 20:10:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10748940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravenlowe/pseuds/ravenlowe
Summary: Life continues on in a world without Harry Hart, until it doesn't.





	A Nervous Tic Motion

**Author's Note:**

> A loose sequel to 'The Naming of Things', though reading the first isn't really required, it might help.
> 
> This was mostly a way for me to work through all the feels that the trailer gave to me, so possible spoilers ahead for The Golden Circle, but mostly vaguery and speculation on everything but one important detail.

Merlin allows himself one moment to feel _everything,_ as he stares at the static-laden feed of Harry's barely functioning glasses. The thought strikes him, how blue the sky is, even through the red flecks that dot the lenses.  His entire world has come crashing down in this single impossible moment.

He takes a deep breath. He closes the feed. He contacts Arthur.

That one moment over, there's scarce time to breathe, let alone mourn, as Harry's death seems to be the catalyst in sending Merlin's life spinning out of control. It isn't fair of him to feel it so personally, he knows. Countless lives were lost on V-Day and in the resulting fallout.   He's not even the only one that lost Harry Hart, but there's no denying that some vital part of Merlin is gone.

He shoves it aside.  There’s no time for this.  Kingsman and the world at large are in a state of chaos.

Merlin doesn’t so much move on, as he carries on.  He works and works and works and refuses to return to the home he once shared with Harry.  He can’t live there, surrounded by Harry’s things, in the grand mausoleum of _other_ dead and wasted things that he built for himself.   _Merlin can’t._ The wound is still open and gaping, but Merlin shoves it all down and away, then continues about his day because there’s nothing else to do.

This isn’t his first loss, it won’t be his last, though it’s certainly his most significant.  If he’d known... _if he’d known.._ well, there’s no amount of knowing anything that can bring Harry back.

Days turn into months, for all Merlin notices the time passing, and when Eggsy enquires about a place to move his family, Merlin finds himself offering up the space that was once Harry’s, _and his._

He goes then, coughing in the dust and the stillness, and gathers his things.  Even, after all these years, Merlin’s personal belongings fit into three cardboard boxes and a large duffel bag.  He’s never quite shaken that need to live as if he might be moving on at any moment. 

Harry’s things get left behind-- or, well the majority of them do.  Merlin takes the evidence of their time together, the photos and gifts--the things that he imagines really mean something.  He can’t bear to look at them, but still, he takes them.  His three boxes become seven before he’s ready to leave.

He’ll call a service to deal with Harry’s clothing, or just leave it to Eggsy.  Merlin’s been here too long already and he aches with it.  He feels every single one of his years.

The last items Merlin packs away for himself, are a leather-bound journal, and a pair of wedding rings. He'd known Harry had the rings, of course, almost from the moment Harry bought them over a decade ago, but Harry had never mentioned them, in deference to Merlin's _issues_ with marriage. They're simple bands, white gold, and etched with a single butterfly on the inner band. Beautiful and never so heavy in Merlin's hand as they are in this moment. He bites his lip as he slips them back into their pouch, and then the pouch into his pocket.

The journal was wedged, hidden, between the bedframe and Harry’s nightstand.  He sits on the edge of their bed and flips through the pages, somehow surprised at the contents, even though he shouldn’t be.  It’s not Harry’s handwriting that decorates the pages, but Merlin’s own.  Every little note that Merlin wrote to the man over the years has been carefully preserved and attached to the pages.  Even the first doesn’t have so much as a crinkle in the sheet.

_I was born in London. We lived in the East End until I was five, when mum took us to live with her family in Aberdeen._

Merlin closes the book, with his fingers clawed into the supple leather cover, and allows himself to cry.

“Oh, you sentimental bastard.”

 

* * *

 

 

He moves back into Headquarters and goes right back to busying himself with a little bit of everything.  There’s missions to handle, tech to dissect, elections to rig.  There’s uprisings, and a few minor invasions by countries less affected by the massacre.  Eggsy, bless his heart, tries to get Merlin to slow down, but it’s easy to make excuses when there really is so much work still to be done.  Merlin’s heart might have stopped, but the world is still turning.  He falls back on his old coping mechanisms; losing himself in circuit boards and the hum of his monitors.

Gareth becomes Arthur, and Eggsy takes up the mantle of his mentor, with all the usual fanfare, but _without_ a new trial process.  Harry gets his final wish; Kingsman breaks away from it’s traditions in order to fill it’s flagging ranks before the next world crisis.

On the day of Eggsy’s knighting, Merlin finds himself jotting down a note to Harry without realizing what he’s doing.

_Your boy is magnificent.  You’d be so proud of him._

He stares at it for a long moment after he realizes what he’s done, then slowly reaches down to his satchel, where he’s kept that leather-bound journal tucked away since the day he found it.  Merlin turns to the last page, and adds the new note to the collection.

After that, it’s as if the floodgates have opened. 

_Ate breakfast with Roxanne today.  She stared at me until I cleared the plate.  You’d laugh to see my own methods turned against me._

It isn’t like before.  He’s not sharing any great secrets about himself, or his past.  They’re nothing that Harry wouldn’t have witnessed for himself, had the _bastard_ been there, instead of dead, buried in some mass grave in Kentucky, so far from home.

_I’ll never forgive myself for being unable to recover your body.  Somedays, I wonder at that, but hope is for children and dreamers, and I am neither.  You were always the one with your head in the clouds._

_Eggsy dragged me down to the kennels today for ‘puppy time.’  Said I needed to lighten up before I gave myself a stroke._

Things settle, and Merlin can’t use the work as an excuse anymore.  He’s exhausted, even with his two youngest agents mother henning him to death, and it shows.  Merlin doesn’t particularly care who notices, at least, he doesn’t until Arthur summons him one afternoon, and all but forces him to take leave.  He’s to face a week of forced downtime, and a psych eval before he’s to even think of returning to work.

Merlin accepts his fate with an ill grace, and books a week at a quaint little bed and breakfast Harry would have adored.  For his sins.

_Arthur wants me to start looking for my replacement._

_I always knew that you’d die before me, but I never expected it to feel like this, you fucking bastard._

Three days into his forced leave, the unthinkable happens once again, and Kingsman is destroyed.

 

* * *

 

 

_It’s gone.  All of it.  Everything we worked for._

Merlin thought he couldn’t hurt any worse than he did the moment he watched Harry die.  He was wrong.

The note is written on a stained cocktail napkin with a shaking hand, then tucked into the journal at random.  Eggsy, though still so young and not faced with losing his _entire life’s work_ , is just as distraught as he is, and one of them has to hold it together.  Merlin will be that rock, because he doesn’t know how to be anything else.

He doesn’t know why he bothered pouring the whiskey, Harry’s favorite, into the glass.  He takes the next pull straight from the bottle.

 

* * *

 

_I thought you couldn't hurt me more than you already had. I was wrong._

Merlin can barely breathe let alone think as he stares through the two way mirror.  Harry Hart, alive and in the flesh and all Merlin can do is stare. Eggsy is tense beside him, similarly afflicted, and puts the emotion of the moment into words so succinctly that Merlin can't help but smile around the roaring in his head.

“Fuck me.”

“Quite,” he agrees.

Amnesia, they tell him, and decreasing fits of violence.  They say that he nearly killed three of their men when he came to, and has been confined to the padded cell ever since.  He’s progressed enough to be allowed little things, like the razor he’s currently making use of, and cutlery, but they don’t trust him enough to let him leave.  They’d saved Harry’s life, out of curiosity-- a security camera had by chance caught footage of Harry’s final confrontation with Valentine-- and great cost.  There was almost as much metal in Harry’s skull as there was bone, and the reconstruction had taken months of treatments.  The Statesmen were able to heal his body, but his mind was a different story.

He sketches out the shadows of his former life on the walls, and his haunted by nightmares, but seems no closer to recovering what he’s lost than he was when he first woke.

_You’re alive, but still gone from me, and fuck it all I’m still so grateful just to see you breathe._

Their first meeting is a rocky one.  Harry is polite, friendly even, but there’s no hint of recognition in his eyes, only a calm curiosity that is so very _Harry_ that it burns.

Merlin doesn’t even bother writing the notes on separate paper anymore.  There’s no time to curate the journal in the way Harry intended, but still, he’s driven to write.  Harry looks at him like a stranger, and it _hurts,_ but the man is alive, and Merlin is used to taking what he can get.  He steals glances, as they work to bring to justice this new threat that nearly destroyed Kingsman right out from under them, but avoids looking at Harry directly.

Eggsy takes it all in stride far better than Merlin does.  He chatters on to Harry as if nothing’s happened, and insists that the man be allowed to fight alongside them.  Harry might not remember, but Kingsman was his too-- he deserves the chance to avenge it, and all the people they lost.

So Merlin once again pushes everything he’s feeling down and away.  It’s all to be hidden behind his mask of impeccable professionalism.  Eggsy shoots him worried glances, because of course the coolness he’s treating Harry with isn’t _normal._

“Merlin, guv--”

“Work now, Galahad.  Personal matters later.”

The boy scoffs and scowls at him, then retreats, but not without a parting shot.  “Figured if there’s nothing else y’shoulda learned from all this, is there might not be a _later._ ”

_Eggsy is a little shit, but an insightful one, and more often than not, he’s right._

Eggsy might be right, but so is Merlin, and there’s too much going on to press the matter.  Merlin’s system of cool poliness and avoidance gets him through the days, while a shot of whiskey sends him to sleep at night.  He ignores the way that Harry and Eggsy steadily grow closer once more, and throws himself into exploring the tech that the Statesmen have to offer.  If he begins researching the possibilities of a cybernetic eye on the side, he doesn’t mention it.

_You’re standing right in front of me, but I miss you now, more than ever.  You smile at Eggsy the way the way you used to smile at me._

Harry corners him once.  They private plane they’re on is small, and with Merlin once again playing the pilot, there’s nowhere to run.

“I’m sorry you know,” the man begins, as he stands at Merlin’s shoulder, and looks out at the sky in front of him.  “I’m not entirely sure what for, but the way I feel when you look away from me.  It well, makes me feel as if I should apologize.”

Merlin sighs and scrubs his hands over his eyes, feeling like an utter bastard.  “It’s not your fault.  None of this is.”

“Oh, I’m well aware of that,” Harry laughs, haughty as ever.  “But knowing something to be true, doesn’t always change how you feel about it, does it?”

It’s an argument that Merlin’s had with himself a hundred times over since Harry’s ‘death.’  He’s tried so hard to find that balance between his emotions and logic in the months following, and utterly failed at it.  “Aye, and sometimes the knowing, just makes the rest of it worse.”

This is the first time they’ve been alone, since they said their goodbyes before Harry left for Kentucky.

Harry clears his throat, and shifts his weight, looking disappointed.  “Yes, well.  Now, I’ve apologized, but it seems I don’t feel any better.   _Damn_.”

It’s ridiculous enough for Merlin to twist in his seat and really _look_ at the man.  Eyepatch aside, Harry looks better than he has in years.  The months of rest have clearly done him well.  There was a gauntness to him before, that is only noticeable in comparison to the way his cheeks fill out now.  The only things that mar his face are the lines of worry as he frowns down at Merlin.

Merlin begins to speak, but Harry presses on before he can even make the first sound.  “I’ve been remembering things, little things mostly, but enough to know that you were--that you _are_ important to me.  I _also_ remember that you’re _incredibly_ tetchy.  So I will allow you to continue on with this little fit you’ve been having, until our current business is solved, but then you and I will be having a long conversation.  No more hiding, darling.”

That’s--It’s-- Merlin scowls as Harry smiles down at him, serene and smug.  He leans down and kisses Merlin then, hard and dirty, with a passion absent from their relationship for years, before abruptly stepping away.  Harry looks as surprised at the action as Merlin does, but after a moment, the soft smile returns to his kiss reddened lips.  “That’s better,” he hums, and turns on his heel, leaving Merlin alone with his bewilderment. 

_You are an absolute bastard, but you’re my absolute bastard, even now._

 

* * *

 

 

They almost never get the chance to have that talk.

Merlin somehow finds himself in the thick of things, as they fight their way through the latest megalomaniac’s bunker.  It’s been years since he’s been in the field proper, their tussle with Valentine’s goons notwithstanding, but he’s never been out of shape, and is more than holding his own.  Of course, that’s when said megalomaniac drops the bunker down around them.

Harry makes it out unscathed, but Merlin, gets pinned by a steel panel from the ceiling.  He screams as the impact downs him, a sharp, fiery pain radiating from his legs just below the knees upwards.  His vision blanks out for a moment, and when he comes to, it’s to Eggsy and Harry, trying to pull the panel and other debris away to free him.

He licks his lips, and lets out a pitiful cough before they realize he’s awake.  “Stop,” he hisses, frowning at the weakness in his own voice. 

Harry stops to kneel by Merlin, but Eggsy growls and and continues on.  “Eggsy, lad.  Even if you manage to free me, my legs are crushed, I’ll be nothing but dead weight.”  It’s hard to think, and even harder to talk, but Merlin’s been in pain before, he can bear this too, to give Eggsy the push he needs.  No Kingsman likes to leave a man down, but sometimes, there’s no other choice.

The needs of the many over the needs of the few.

“But, Merlin, guv--”

“The job comes first.  You know that.  The others need your help more than I do right now.  You’re a good lad, and a good agent.  I’m proud of you.”  His words must sound too much like a final confession.  Eggsy’s expression darkens, as he prepares to fight Merlin on this, but a cough from Harry draws his attention.

“You go on ahead, Eggsy.  I’ll join you in a moment.”

And that’s that.   “You’re the guv’n’r, Merlin,” he hums, and with reluctance steps out into the cavern to give them privacy.

“If I’d known the lengths you’d go to in order to avoid our talk, I’d have waited to confront you,” Harry chides, as he brushes his fingers over Merlin’s forehead.

Merlin lets out a weak chuckle.  “You’d best be off too.  Saving the world waits for no man, but first---”  He trails off as he feels around the debris keeping him pinned, until he manages to snag the small velvet bag from his pockets.  Merlin doesn’t believe he will die here.  He’s in agony, yes, but he’s survived worse.  Just in case, however, if he does die, he wants Harry to have the rings.  They’re too beautiful to be lost on a body decaying in an unnamed bunker, and they clearly meant so much to Harry _before._ He presses the bag into Harry’s waiting hands.

Harry frowns as he opens the bag and dumps the contents into his palm.  “Christ,” he curses as he runs his finger over the circumference and stares down at the rings with wide eyes.  “Were--Are we?”

“No,” Merlin hummed as he fights the urge to writhe and fidget.  Moving about will just make it worse, and he has no real way of knowing if he’s injured beyond the pain he feels from his legs. “Though, by no fault of your own.  I’ll..I’ll tell you the story when we have that talk.  For now, just keep them safe?”  Because Merlin won’t be there, physically or on coms, to have Harry’s back and keep _him_ safe.

“Of course.  You just worry about keeping yourself alive long enough that we can have that talk.”  Harry drops the rings back into their bag, then slips it into his breast pocket.  He leaves Merlin then with a gun and a kiss, bittersweet.  “Even if I never recover my memories,” he hums as he stands.  “I believe I look forward to falling in love with you all over again, cantankerous bastard that you are.”

There’s nothing for him to write on, but alone, and waiting for death or whatever else to take him, Merlin traces letters one atop of the other into the dust.

_I love you...you cheeky pain in the arse._

 

* * *

 

 

“I take back what I said about falling in love with you again.”

Merlin doesn’t have an accounting for events long after Harry left.  Despite his best efforts, he passed out, only to awake in what appears to be a medical suite, with Harry once more at his side.  The man looks as tired as Merlin feels, but despite his harsh words, his hand is wrapped tight around Merlin’s.  “Is everyone alright,” he rasps.  “How long has it been?”

“By all means, ignore what I said, to ask those admittedly important questions,” Harry grouses, but he can’t be too angry, or too injured for that matter, because he moves to sit on the edge of Merlin’s bed and lets go of his hand, in favor of helping him drink a cup of water.  “But yes, cuts and bruises and minor broken bones aside, everyone, aside from you, is well, and the world is once again saved.  It’s been a week.”  Harry pauses there, looking, for perhaps the first time in his life, hesitant. “Ah.  I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, but they couldn’t save your legs.”

Merlin blinks, looks down, and sure enough, his legs are gone, just below the knee, where he took the brunt of the impact.  He can’t help it he laughs, and startles Harry so badly the poor man spills a dribble of the water down Merlin’s front.

“Are you going hysterical?  Should I call someone?”  Harry stands and moves to do just that, but Merlin grabs him by the arm, and pulls him back down.

“No, no,” he slurs, the drugs and exhaustion creeping back in to try and rob him of this moment with Harry.  “It’s just, spent part of my military career searching out landmines, and this is how I lose m’legs?  You wouldn’t remember that though…” The odd look on Harry’s face makes Merlin pause.  “Unless?”

Harry shakes his head, and Merlin’s heart drops, just a little.  He’d almost allowed himself to hope.  “There’s been bits and flashes,” Harry supplies.  “I can almost picture you with hair.”

And that’s something at least, but it doesn’t explain how Harry’s reaction to that little tidbit about Merlin’s past, at least it doesn’t until Merlin follows Harry’s line of sight.  There, on the side table, next to the pitcher of water, is the damnable journal.  Merlin grunts, and looks back to Harry, who sighs, and fiddles with fixing Merlin’s blankets.  “I meant what I said before, about taking back what I said in the bunker about falling in love with you again.”

Merlin frowns, his memory fuzzy.  “You said..you were looking forward to it?”

“I did,” Harry nods, before meeting Merlin’s gaze.

“And now you’re not?”

“I think I already have,” Harry admits.  “If only a little.  You _are_ still awfully grumpy, even in text.”

It’s almost too much for Merlin to wrap his head around.  The past few weeks have been reduced to a blur.  He’s lost Harry, and gotten him back.  Lost his life’s work, and his bloody legs.  He’s a genius, and a professional, amazing at compartimilization, but there’s a tipping point, and Merlin, he tipped over _months_ ago, and has been pretending that he didn’t, but there’s no real pretending now.

“I’m not expecting anything in return,” Harry rambles on around the roaring in Merlin’s ears.  “I know you’ve been having _troubles._ You’re exhausted and malnourished on top of the injuries you sustained, by the way.  I believe Eggsy wishes to have _words_ with you about that.  But, I know I’m not the Harry that you’ve spent the last twenty years with--”

“You are in all the ways that matter.”

Harry scoffs.  “We’ve been reaquainted for two weeks, most of which you’ve spent avoiding me, and another part of that unconscious in this very bed.”

“Fair enough,” Merlin admits, as he squirms around until he can cup Harry’s cheek with his palm.  Harry leans into the touch like a man starved, and Merlin rubs his thumb over the edge of the black eyepatch that serves as a very visible reminder of what they _could_ have lost.  “But I did spend most of that time watching you, and _I know you Harry._  You’re as much yourself as you’ve ever been.  Did a lot of thinking in that time too, and Harry, I’ve come to a conclusion, shite poor job I’ve done showin’ it to you.  See I lived the past year without ye, I cannae do it again, do you hear me?  It’s not a guarantee that we’ll work things out, but the lives we live?  We’ve never ‘ad one of those.”

Harry smiles, and for the moment, that’s answer enough.  They have a lot to talk about, but Merlin’s energy is flagging, and his legs are starting to ache.  Harry leans over and punches the button to give Merlin a fresh rush of medication, then moves to leave.  It isn’t _quite_ what he would have done before the accident, but once Merlin starts moving about to make space for him on the bed, he’s quick on the uptake.

His body still fits against Merlin’s exactly the way it’s supposed to.

 

_________

 

Years pass, with miles of various therapies, world ending threats, and a universe of work between them, before Merlin comes across the journal again.  He never quite picked up the habit of writing the notes again after his bitter phase, but now, faced with the last empty page, he finds the inspiration to write one last line.

He signs it with a flourish, before taking the journal into the sitting room, where Harry is curled up, reading a book with Wellington, their faithful corgi plastered to his side.

Harry blinks at the offering at first, turning the well worn leather over in his hands, as Welly sniffs away, curious as ever, so Merlin stands, staring at him until he opens it, and flips through the pages to the last.  He frowns a moment as he tries to suss out the hidden meaning behind the two simple words, then breaks out into the most beautiful smile Merlin thinks he’s ever seen.

“Well, I suppose _it was_ too much to hope that you’d ask,” he quips, as he sets the book aside, pages still open, in favor of pulling Merlin down to him for a kiss.

_I do._

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! This one was hard to write, but once I got started, it just started flowing on out. I can't wait for September!
> 
> The title comes from A Nervous Tic Motion of the Head to the Left, by Andrew Bird.
> 
> You can find me on tumblr @ sleepersith, where I mostly shitpost, reblog pretties, and when the mood strikes do a little writing.


End file.
